Stuck in "Preparing data" when loading a saved scene
Riggswolfe
Posts: 905
[Stuck in "Preparing data" when loading a saved scene] Does this mean the scene is corrupt? Is there anyway around it? If I let it run will it eventually load the scene?
Edited for Please put your question in the post body and the title - Daz 3D Forums
Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
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Yes, probably. :(
No, probably not.
Maybe, but if you are seeing the load bar stuck at a certain percentage, and hours later it is still on that percentage, give it up. I've had scenes that will eventually load, but stuck is stuck.
A few rules that are oft repeated here:
✓ Remove any extra shaders and unused objects from your file before saving (under the EDIT menu so they are purged from memory).
✓ Delete any stray temp files from your DAZTEMP folder on a regular basis.
✓Give your HDD plenty of breathing room. Backup and delete old large projects and defrag your hdd. Adobe recommends keeping 20GB free for Photoshop's virtual memory, that number might be a little high for Carrara, but you *do* need lots of breathing room for virtual memory to maneuver.
These won't recover your scene, but hopefully will help to prevent corrupted scenes in the future.
Well the loading bar finishes but I see preparing data in the upper left corner where the Camera is. I'll make a note of what you've said here. I hadn't made huge progress on the project but I'd made enough that I wanted to pick up where I left off. Thank you Holly, for the reply.
one thing sometimes works if it is a compressed car file, rename the suffix to zip then unzip it
rename the suffix back to car
and try to open it - thanks to fenric for this tip
I tried this trick. Alas, it didn't work for loading the scene though I did learn something new from it. :)
HI Riggswolfe :)
Q: was your scene saved with the "Textured" Display mode, which could increase the scene loading time.
Q: What's your Graphic card
Some times in Carrara,. there can appear to be noting happening,. so,. Hit Space bar, to see if anything happens.
If your Scene loads, (and you see the instance list) but nothing actually displays,. (if you have access to the move tools on the left) then try moving the camera, or clicking an item in the Scene instance list.
hope that makes sense :)
I've had this happen, and it pretty much locks up Carrara and never loads. Though I don't think I've had it occur in the latest beta (could be wrong, it's been a long time...), and never had it occur in 8.1. I think it just happened in some of the early 8.5 betas.
In any case, I've tried hitting escape, and just about everything I can think of, but nothing helps. Carrara locks up and you're dead. I've had to go to Task Manager and kill the process.
Hey 3DAge,
I was looking at things in the textured mode when I saved it. Does that mean it saved in that mode too? I'm quite the newbie to Cararra.
My graphic card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 580.
The scene loads and I do see the objects on the right side. However, in the upper left corner where it usually shows the camera name I'm currently using it says "Preparing Data..." and it never gets past that stage. I let it run overnight once and the next day it still said the same thing. :(
Can you click on anything in Carrara and get a reaction or is everything frozen?
Do any of these icons at the top of the Assembly Room window do anything (especially the circle with the up arrow)?
I went ahead and tried to reopen it. I can click on stuff including those icons. If I click on the up arrow I get the bottom part of an ok/cancel dialogue. Clicking on OK replaces "Preparing Data" with "Render failed." I've included screen shots.You can see the ok/cancel box at the bottom right above the animation toolbar.
Good news. I installed the 8.5 beta update and it opened in that. I'm not sure what the difference was. I opened it and resaved it. I set the scene view on Gourad and unchecked 'save preview' and 'compress file'.
I tested it and it still won't load in 8.1 but it does load in the 8.5 beta. I wonder if there is some bug fix affecting that?
HI Riggswolfe :)
There will be some scenes which you can now create in the 8.5 beta, which won't load the same,. or at all,. in C8.1
For example : anything with genesis. :-/
But, there are other new features of the C8.5 beta, which will cause some issues in transferring to the (current retail release) of C8.1,... simply because the exist only in current Beta C8.5,
So, The ability to transfer scenes "Backwards" from newer version of a program will be less,... because of the different technology and functions which have been added to the newer version
Carrara will still have the ability to transfer older scenes, shaders, and objects, from C6, C7, or C8,. To C8.5
Going Forwards, is fine, but, Going Backwards,.. may not be :(
In Carrara,
if you save your file,. try to save it from the Assembly room,. ..rather than from another room like the vertex modeller, or the shader room,
Also , .. try to close down any open shader pane's and colour pane's.
These are all being held in Memory while they're open, and if you've been Changing, Swapping or generally adjusting things...
All of those adjustment are being held in an "Undo" list,..
so,. for example,
If you load V4,. (from your Daz or Poser) Content Runtime,... and then you change the default skin, ..then change it to another skin,....
All of those are held in case you want to Undo.
The vertex modeller, has the ability to open several objects, and each modelling screen,. holds all the information for that model,. plus any undo..
So,. remember, before you close Carrara, and save the file.. .. close any modelling, or shaders,... the go to the assembly room, and use the "Remove unused" options,. since the will remove any Shaders, Models, etc which are "Not Currently Active" in the scene
one last thing,.. How are you loading figures,...?
You have entries like "BlMillMan_etc...
If you're using the Carrara Content Browser to See, your Current DS or Poser stuff,. then you should see then loaded with their proper names EG: Michael 4,..Victoria 4 etc.
Hope it helps :)
So, was the original file produced in 8.5beta and you forgot about it?
That would be one possible explanation.
Feel free to call me out on this one if you never used 8.5 before this.
To answer your questions 3DAge and RoguePilot
1) The scene was created in Daz. I exported it as a Collada(?) then imported it into Cararra. I modified a lot of stuff like completely changing the clothing and pose for the figure as well as removing a couple of objects, moving the figure to a window and, of course, tweaking shaders, particularly on the M4 figure and the room he is in.
2) I did this in 8.1 and saved it from there. That's why it didn't even occur to me at first to try 8.5. The scene has no Genesis figures and was originally saved from 8.1.
If it's a version 4 or earlier figure (M4, V4, M3, V3) etc. and you're changing so much stuff anyway, it would probably be more efficient to load the figure from the Content Browser. You can load the figure, apply material files, load clothing, apply morphs and poses all from within Carrara. You're still going to have to tweak shaders and such no matter your method of bringing them in, but the overall system overhead should be much less I would think as there would be no unnecessary file conversions.
The reason I didn't do it that way is because it's a "character" I created complete with specific morphs and stuff that I didn't know if I'd be able to reliably replicate so I wanted to import him and do a fun render in Cararra with him.
And I posted the render I wanted this scene for over in the A New Hope render thread.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/221/P405/
Oops! I meant to post some general tips on getting better Assembly Room and Carrara performance.
The Interactive Renderer (the up arrow within a circle) is very helpful. You can use software or OpenGL for the Assembly Room renderer. Unless you have driver issues with your graphics card, OpenGL would be the way to go. The Interactive Renderer has nothing to do with the Render Room. These settings are scene specific, so every scene you start you will have to set the renderer. Some people make and save a default scene with their preferred settings.
There are some settings you can tweak or turn off to ease the load on your card if it becomes an issue. The default texture size is pretty large, to speed things up, and reduce the overhead on your graphic card's memory, lower it's value. You can also turn off transparencies, etc.
To help with Carrara's memory handling, you can go to the file menu and open the preferences menu. From under the imaging and scratch disk section, try lowering the texture spooling. The initial value is based on how much RAM you have installed. The more RAM the higher the value. The slider defaults to about the halfway point. I have mine at around 70 MB. As far as I know there is no hard and fast rule, just that lower can be better. This is a global setting and will stay the same until you change it. You will also need to restart Carrara after making any changes.
This has been mentioned in many threads by many different people, but makes sure you clean out your temp. file. If you don't know the path, or want to change the location, you can refer back to the image and scratch disk section of the preferences.
That is pretty darn helpful. A quick question, how do you set the default scene? I know how to do it in Daz, it's a preference you just tell it what scene to use as a default but I looked through the Cararra preferences and didn't see a way to do it.
That's very nice. Sorry I missed it!
I think it depends on the morphs used to create the character. Some people have had issues, but so far I have not, but then again, I create my own in Carrara using morphs++. I have DLed a couple characters others have made. I had one for Summer Glau and the girl that played the Vulcan in ST:Enterprise and both worked fine in Carrara. I have a couple others I've DLed and haven't tried, but so far, so good. There are many people here that have transferred characters over from D/S and I'm sure that they could give more specific advice.
Can you use your method to bring just the character from D/S into Carrara 8 (non-beta)? You could then save him to your Objects Browser for later Carrara use. I've found that the figures also seem to load a bit faster after they've been saved as a Carrara file, but this could just be my perception.
The character is just some standard morphs. A bit of M4 aged mixed with a few other dial spins. The problem is I don't remember which ones so it seemed easier just to export him. :) I also haven't really figured out how to do injects and other morphs in Cararra yet. I've seen some morphs here and there on various clothing pieces and stuff but haven't figured out how to do an inject on a figure yet.
Your idea sounds smart. I'm a roleplayer when I'm not doing rendering and/or writing short stories and I like to do renders of game characters. I'd love to do as you suggest and make a figure library in the objects browser though to be honest, I don't have the first clue how to do it. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Do I just strip everything that isn't the figure out of the scene and then save it as a .car? Is it as simple as that?
You would just create a scene with the settings you like and save it with a name like "default scene," or something. I created a folder called "My Scenes" and saved a couple scenes in there. I then selected the Scene tab of the browser, clicked the little black icon on the far right and chose Add Folder. When the dialogue opened, I navigated to my folder and selected it.
This can be useful for many things that are scene specific, from render settings, to the default light, etc.
It's pretty simple. I made a folder called People Objects, went into Carrara and loaded the folder into the Object Browser using the method I outlined in my above post for scenes, except in this case I had selected the Objects tab.
Whenever I create a figure I wish to save, I select it's name in my instances tab (top level of the character) and with my People Objects directory selected in the Browser, I drag and drop the character to the browser. It doesn't matter what else is in the scene or if the figure is clothed, but the clothes are not grouped, it will only save the figure. This can take a minute because Carrara will automatically save a scene preview. Carrara will also ask you to name the file and has a space for notes as well.
If you wish to save a character with it's clothing, all you have to do is group the character and the clothing. To do this, select the character, and the clothing, go to either the Edit Menu and select the Group command, or go to the Animation menu and select Create Animation Group. You may have to re-conform the clothing after this step. Once either type of group is created, you can change the name of the group by selecting it, and changing the name in the text box in the group's General tab at the top of the screen. Grab the Group name in the instances Tab and drag it your directory in the Object Browser and it will save the figure and whatever else is included in the group.
Using the Animation Group Option will create the group with an NLA track. Think of something like Aniblocks. You can still animate a regular group, but you won't have the NLA track.
I forgot to add that if I recall correctly, when saving a scene to the browser, you can't drag and drop it as you would an object or shader. You will need to save it directly to the directory where you want it to appear. If you want the scene preview, then make sure that option is selected when you save it.
It's also a good idea once the scene is loaded from the browser, to Save As with a different name, so as not to overwrite the original file.
HI Riggswolfe :)
The first thing to grasp with Carrara, is that it's been able to "Load" content from Daz3D and POSER for several versions.
Directly from the Carrara Browser,.
The newest 8.5 "Beta" also supports the New DUF format. which allows you to save the SCENE, as DUF, from DS 4.5,
and then load that into Carrara,
You can also save DUF ""Character pre-sets" or Material pre-sets, or Animation pre-sets ...etc,..
What that basically means is that the Collada format isn't needed to get your "custom figures" (characters) into Carrara
this potentially saves you hitting any issues with different formats, and Exporting / Importing models,.. since Duff is a small list of the items used,.(No "textures exported,. and No Models exported) ..So,.. when you load it into Carrara,. the data in that DUF will load the items into Carrara with all the morphs , materials, animation etc.
Lastly,..
If there's a way to get a model into a program which doesn't involve "Exporting / importing" the model,...
You should use that first
If you're going to use Carrara to create your scene,... Don't start in DS :)
Hope it helps :) ,,, and isn't too harsh.
You would browse to the Poses section,. find the Morphs for your Figure,. and then Double click to inject (or remove) them See pic.
Once you've injected the morphs into a figure, you'll see a set of sliders where you can adjust the individual; settings,. just like you would on Poser or DS.
For the Default scene,... carrara has Three "Default" scenes,...
Small ,, Medium, and Large,. depending what you want to do.
Thanks very much to both of you. I should clarify that the scene/character in question is an old Daz 3 scene. I guess I could've loaded it into DS4.5 and saved it as a DUF scene but since it wasn't Genesis I was using 8.1 because I figured it'd be more stable than the beta. Ironic that it was the beta that let me load up the scene and finally render it!
Hi,
I know this is a very old thread indeed, but I have something to add, just in case some poor soul hits the same problem I had.
If you are dealing with old 8.1 files they might not load in 8.5. The error you might get is stuck in "preparing data". The semi-solution is to re-install 8.1 and have it living side by side with 8.5.
I am now at least abel to open my file again in 8.1. This is a great relief as I'm still working on that film I started back in 2010. This scene was set up in 8.1 so circa 2011/2012. It is now needed again.
HOWEVER - I still have a problem. I really need it in 8.5 as that is where I render from (with the Octane plug in). I believe Octane won't work with 8.1 anymore.
My question then -
Is there any way of converting an 8.1 scene to 8.5 without just opening it in 8.5?
I believe this question is relevant to this thread as, you never know someone else long in the tooth might need an old scene back as well.
Any suggestions. I'd love to render this in Octane.
Thanks!
UPDATE - I've found the section of this huge scene that is causing the error. I'm just removing bits of that section it works again, then I'll report back what the offending model was ...
does it work grouping all your scene and exporting that as a .car file?
Thanks for the suggestion Wendy.
I have solved the problem now.
1. I reinstalled 8.1 to read the old file.
2. Then I took bits out until I found the offending section. It was a mass of badly put together models with a lot of replication. One of my first efforts to model / kit bash.
Without that section in it, the file can be read by 8.5 as well. So my scene lives on!
I have to re-model or re-think those duff models. I'm happy with that - at least 90% of it renders in Octane again.
off to the modelling room .....